November 21, 2015

I came across UV Resin Craft for the first time when I walked into Tokyu Hands and came upon their big counter display that looked both interesting, beautiful, and (shock!) doable. I didn’t end up buying anything from there initially, but did cave in and buy some supplies when I saw they were available at Daiso for only ¥100! I just couldn’t resist trying this fun project out!

UV Resin involves lots of hand eye coordination and working with tiny materials. It took ages (and hours of YouTube how-to-make videos), but I had fun making my first charm, and the results when I cured the resin under sunlight weren’t bad at all. Realizing I could experiment more, I decided to go back and buy a wider variety of material from both Daiso and Tokyu Hands (maybe not the best idea because I haven’t used 90% of those materials in the past 5 months).

Anyway, since these UV Resin Charms look soo cute, I decided to make and gift one each for my younger cousins who are 11 years and 9 years old. I wanted to make them something personalized, so I decided to put their names on the charms and try to incorporate fun elements into the design. It took me a few sunny days to complete them, as I kept retouching them until I was satisfied, but they turned out much better than I had ever imagined in the end! The photographs I took of them before presenting it to the girls were pretty awesome too!

November 20, 2015

Using the elevator isn’t as easy as it sounds. Elevator logic and etiquette are actually rather complex and forever changing, and you suddenly realize (if you’re anything like me) that a day doesn’t go by when you’re not annoyed at somebody’s behavior or mannerisms while riding the elevator that day. It’s not like lifts have directions or a how to manual that everyone is required to read. Neither does it have visual diagrams that illiterate people can use to understand how to use this machinery. On top of that, using an elevator is not taught at primary school as an essential life skill, unfortunately.

I’ve really gotten used to the non-uniformity in elevator practices among riders, but it hasn’t escaped my critical eye. I feel like today’s blog post has been waiting to be written for about 10 years now. Well, at least I finally got around to it!

I feel like its commonplace for myself and other people to make occasional mistakes while riding an elevator and getting embarrassed over our actions. However, I believed these mistakes were a rare occurrence while I was growing up. But when I moved to India, the ratio of clueless elevator riders seems to exponentially increase. (Is this why buildings still have a liftwala to guide you?) Unfortunately, since I’ve been living in India, the error in people’s thinking and ways is all-too-evident to see. Whether it is getting on the lift without paying attention to the direction it is going in, forgetting to press the button for which floor you’re intending to get to, or not pressing the appropriate ‘up’ or ‘down’ key when calling the elevator to you, elevators are contraptions used to serve knowledgeable and ignorant folks alike.

So let me just cut to the chase – it doesn’t matter where the lift is at that point in time, whether you press the ‘up’ or ‘down’ button is very straightforward. If you would like the elevator to take you up to a higher floor – press the ‘up’ arrow. Even if the elevator is already on a higher floor and needs to come down to get you, you simply need to press the direction button for where you want to go. The elevator doesn’t need to be told how to act, you need to feed it information on where you want to go and it’s up to the machine to figure out how to do it. And if you want the elevator to take you down to a lower floor – press the ‘down’ arrow. Regardless of whether it is already on a lower floor and needs to come up to pick you up and take you back down, you simply inform the lift through the ‘down’ button that you’re destination is below you’re current location.

November 7, 2015

**I really could have used this recipe when I was living in the UK and US trying to wax by myself for years! Now that I use an epilator, my need for instant wax has diminished considerably (though not completely).**

Recently, when I made a trip to Japan for what I thought would be a fleeting 2 weeks, I left my razor and epilator behind, not realizing the trip would morph into over 4 months. In desperation, I set out to find and make my own wax so that I could at least remove hair from my lip and chin, if nothing else. It was the middle of a hot summer there, so I also wanted to wax my underarms so that I could wear some sleeveless clothes there!

My attempt at making sugar wax turned out to be a successful endeavor and the recipe I used was taken from here. I decided to make half the recommended amount because all the areas that needed waxing for me were small (see above).

Instant Sugar Wax Recipe

This simple recipe involves only 3 ingredients:

1/2 cup sugar2 tablespoons tap water2 tablespoons lemon juice

Follow these easy instructions to make your wax:

You’ll need a pot (be safe and avoid the nonstick) to heat the mixture. Heat on medium as the sugar will melt then boil and bubble, which can easily burn you if it froths and to the point of overflowing. Mix until the sugar mixture thickens a little and turns dark like maple syrup. Consistency should be syrupy and take about 6-8 minutes.

Immediately take the pot off the heat and pour into the container you wish to store it in. Do this while it’s still hot so that the wax doesn’t harden and stick to the pot. (At this point, the wax is ready-to-use!) When I made this wax a second time in America, I made the mistake of leaving the wax in the pot and going out for lunch. When I got back, I was able to melt the wax enough to get it out, but the wax was nowhere as good at doing it’s job because it has been heated too long!

The wax can be stored at room temperature and seems to hold for ages! I put my wax into a small glass bowl, let it cool, then covered it with cling film and stuck it into my bathroom cupboard.

November 2, 2015

We all fold and cut paper to make snowflakes when we’re children… it’s like a rite of passage. But it took me over two decades to realize that paper cutting with scissors (for sissies) or x-acto knives (for experts) is in-fact a serious art form.

I was (re)introduced to paper cutting about 6 months ago, when I came across a series of bilingual Kirigami books for ¥100 each at the local Daiso. I used the templates given in the books to make a few origami cut outs but found them somewhat restricting and am now experimenting with other forms of paper art.

For the past few days, I’ve been obsessively surfing the net to see how people cut paper silhouettes. I loved the idea and just had to try it out myself. Here are some instructions on how I went about it!

HOW TO MAKE A PAPER CUT SILHOUETTE

Initially, I wasted lots of time unsuccessfully trying to find a picture of myself with a side profile, so I ended up taking a selfie silhouette photograph with my smartphone and uploading it to my laptop.

first step – get selfie silhouette shot with hair looking amazing

I computer edited it before printing out several to use as templates for cutting out my own versions.

second step – photo edited to make cutting templates for silhouette paper cuts

Now cut!! I ended up making 3 paper cutting attempts. The results, thankfully, didn’t turn out to be a disaster (despite going the sissy route and using scissors to cut instead of my trusty x-acto). At least my facial features are identifiable! Woo hoo!